DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang has voiced his full support for former deputy prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin's suggestion that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to "takes a break" until he is cleared from any wrongdoing.
"I fully support Muhyiddin's proposal that Najib should ‘take a break’ as prime minister to allow unimpeded 1MDB investigations and to return as PM after he is cleared of any involvement by the investigation," Lim said in a speech in Penang last night.
Najib is currently involved in investigations into 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion found in his personal bank accounts.
However, Lim said he was certain that Najib would never heed Muhyiddin's proposal, "not for a thousand years".
Otherwise, he explained, the country would not have been bogged down with the two scandals for so long.
"Muhyiddin's speech in Kuala Lumpur (last night) is the most powerful rebuttal of Najib's claim that the opposition spews nothing but lies on 1MDB," Lim said.
Now, it is not only opposition leaders who are outraged by deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's three-minute explanation on the RM2.6 billion on the last day of Parliament this year, he said.
"Even Muhyiddin also deplored Zahid's three-minute statement in Parliament.
"Muhyiddin asked the right question: 'Why didn't the PM go to Parliament to explain, why did he have to ask his deputy to do so?"
'Like two mammoth elephants stomping'
Lim said Najib had been trying to erase the two scandals from public consciousness but to no avail.
Even if Najib bans the two issues during the Umno general assembly, which opens today, Lim said that it would still be on everybody's minds.
"Everybody, including the Umno, Umno Youth, Wanita and Puteri delegates and observers know that the twin mega scandals are the real two big issues, like two mammoth elephants stomping about in the Putrajaya World Trade Centre (PWTC)," he said.
But will they dare to address these two issues, he wondered, or will they continue to ignore them?
"If Umno cannot provide the leadership and set the example for a clean and honest leadership, especially over Najib's twin mega scandals, then Umno should be replaced in the 14th general election," Lim added.
Last night, Muhyiddin held an event at the Sultan Sulaiman Club in Kampung Baru, at which he said he had been barred from speaking at the Umno AGM.
More than 1,000 people turned up to hear him speak, including former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Umno vice-president Shafie Apdal.
